In the past week I’ve had some very rare moments of “free time” which, of course, were spent working on swapping the manual transmission into the Chevelle.

I’ve now dubbed the input shaft The Ankle Buster since as it sits, that’s what it does. Ow.

Having recently got a good 621 bellhousing on ebay, I removed the truck one from the muncie and generally cleaned it up. The front bearing retainer is a bit chewed up where the throwout bearing rides, so that will need replacing. I’ll put a new gasket in there while I’m at it. I still need to clean up the sidecover sealing surface and put an actual gasket in there as well.

Also, the car got taller. A lot taller, since the powerglide case is also the bellhousing and I’ll need to be able to get it out from under the car somehow.

The rear wheels are chocked on the other side, too. It’s pretty solid, all while still enabling me to open the doors!

I don’t have any pictures of this part, but I also removed the center of the exhaust (unbolted the collectors and band clamps at the mufflers), drive shaft, inspection cover, disconnected the electrical plug on the trans (which was full of fluid that poured out when I unplugged it), disconnected the linkages, disconnected the cooler lines (one broke), speedo cable (which was not secure in any way, the whole ‘bullet’ pulled out), and unbolted the torque converter. In short - the transmission is ready to come out, being only bolted to the crossmember and back of the engine.

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Most recently I went inside, unbolting the seat and removing the front carpet very likely for the first time in 46 years.

So much better than I was expecting. To be fair, this is after I vacuumed it out.

Someone put the ground on my floor!

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The floor looks good, and all that sound deadening is oily feeling so I’m not
concerned about rust under it (the floors are solid from underneath,
too). There is only one problem on the floor, right inside the
passenger’s door by the kick panel that looks like the door weatherstrip
leaked and over time the damp carpet rotted it.The carpet bottom wasn’t wrecked here, so I suspect this is a very recent happening.

There was also a dead baby mouse under the carpet, I’ll spare you that picture.

The hole will be cleaned up and patched when I put in the hump for the manual shifter. It’s a weird spot when you consider it from underneath - between the rocker and the frame.

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I swear it’s not as nasty as this picture makes it look.

The carpet that came out is pretty clean too, all things considered (such as 46 years of feet). While it’s out, I’ll give it a good vacuuming and see if I can clean it with a carpet spot cleaning machine to maybe make it all one color again. I’m going to cringe a little when I have to cut into it for the shifter.

Is this upside down? I don’t trust Kinja. It’s right-side-up on my computer but not in the post editor...

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So that’s where I’m at right now. The inside is pretty much ready to put in the skinny brake and clutch pedal, and underneath it’s ready to pull the powerglide out and generally prep for Muncie install. Work travel is still nasty, so I’ll not have the chance to work on this at all for a while. I’ve ordered most of the interior parts, so that’s something.

Bonus picture for sticking with me: I pressure washed 2 slabs of the driveway today (need to do all of it but I have some sympathy for my well so I’m splitting it up) and it was very satisfying.